Blue Jackets rally late, edge Avs in OT

DENVER -- Down a goal in the final 90 seconds and in danger of seeing a vital two points slip away, the Columbus Blue Jackets didn't panic.

Instead, they became determined.

"No one got down. Years in the past, there would have been dropped shoulders," Columbus center R.J. Umberger said. "This bench was saying, 'Let's go after them, let's get them.' This group, we're fighting to the end, and everybody knew we were going to win this game."

Umberger did his part by scoring the tying goal at 18:33 of the third period, Nick Foligno won it with a goal with 28.7 seconds left in overtime, and the Blue Jackets beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 Monday night.

The win moves Columbus (20-16-7) into ninth place in the Western Conference. The Blue Jackets are tied in points with the Detroit Red Wings at 47, but the Red Wings have played one fewer game.

Columbus got some help Monday when the Dallas Stars lost at Chicago. Dallas has 45 points.

"There's no quit on this team, and that's what's going to allow us, hopefully, to get into the playoffs," said Foligno, who also had an assist.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 29 shots, and Mark Letestu and Blake Comeau also scored for the Blue Jackets, who have won four straight.

They wouldn't have gotten the two points without Bobrovsky's play. The goaltender had five saves in overtime, the biggest one on Gabriel Landeskog's short-handed breakaway chance.

"He gives our team confidence," Columbus coach Todd Richards said of Bobrovsky. "As a coach, at times you hold your breath. I see them coming in, and I don't look because I know he's going to make the save."

Cody McLeod had two goals and Jamie McGinn scored for Colorado, which is 2-0-2 in the past week.

McGinn gave the Avalanche (14-22-7) a late lead when he tipped Stefan Elliott's shot past Bobrovsky with 2:02 remaining in regulation.

The celebration didn't last long. Umberger got a step on defenseman Tyson Barrie and beat Jean-Sebastien Giguere between the pads to tie it with 1:27 left.

"For most of the game, we battled hard, we get a huge goal with two minutes left in the game, and then we give up a breakaway," McLeod said. "We can't do that. That's the kind of thing we've been doing all year, and it's tough."

Late in overtime, Foligno came into the zone with Umberger, and skating on the right, he beat Giguere with a shot to the short side.

"It was a 2-on-1, and the guy decided to shoot it. I didn't play it the way I should have played it," said Giguere, who made 26 saves. "It found a way underneath my pad. It was a disappointing goal, but what can you do?"

Foligno said he had to make a quick decision on the play.

"In that instance, you want to get a shot on net and not risk a great opportunity like that to go to waste," he said. "I looked for (Umberger) at first and didn't feel like the pass was there and took a chance on the shot."

It was a key two points for the Blue Jackets, who need a strong finish to reach the postseason for just the second time in their history. The win over Colorado came in the second game of a six-game road trip.

Neither team generated much in the first half of the game, but things loosened up midway through the second. McLeod gave Colorado a 1-0 lead when he knocked in a rebound of a Landeskog shot at 10:57 of the second.

Columbus tied it 1:38 later when Letestu one-timed a pass from Vinny Prospal.

The Blue Jackets took a 2-1 lead on Comeau's goal 2:32 into the third, but the Avalanche tied it with 14:39 left on McLeod's second of the nihgt.

It was McLeod's first two-goal game since Oct. 17, 2009, at Detroit. It's also the first time he's scored goals in consecutive games in four years.

NOTES: Blue Jackets defenseman Adrian Aucoin left the game in the second period with an undisclosed injury. ... Columbus center Artem Anisimov was scratched with an upper-body injury suffered in Saturday's game against Minnesota. He's day to day. ... Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov was activated off the injured list. He missed the past week with a hip injury suffered during a morning skate on April 8. ... Colorado head coach Joe Sacco was named head coach of the 2013 U.S. Men's National Team on Monday. The team will participate in the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation Men's World Championship from May 3-19 in Helsinki, Finland, and Stockholm, Sweden. ... A winter storm that hit the Denver metro area affected attendance. Most sections of Pepsi Center were sparsely filled with fans, and a crowd of 13,694 was announced.